Published: February 17, 2025 | Source: ASUS | Author: Tom Logan

ASUS ROG RTX 5090 Astral LC Review

Conclusion

The ASUS ROG RTX 5090 Astral LC is the perfect card for those of you on a tight budget. No. Wait. Not tight. We mean the other thing. Alexa, what’s a synonym for unlimited? The ASUS ROG RTX 5090 Astral LC is the perfect card for those of you on a Bezos budget.

That’s okay though. This isn’t a card for everyone. It’s not meant to be. The Nvidia RTX 5090 is for the most well-heeled enthusiast. Getting a Republic of Gamers one automatically makes it a premium model. A liquid-cooled ASUS ROG take on the flagship Nvidia card – AKA the best gaming card on earth – is such a nichÃ© product that the only people reading this review are the same as us. Dreamers. People who imagine what they’d do if they won big. This is our version of the “I wouldn’t tell anyone I’d won the lottery but there would be signs” meme. The signs being one of these crammed in our rig.

Performance is incredible. Cooling is exceptional – a peak of 57Â°C is utterly mental. By being so cool it’s quiet. You can game with everything set to maximum without turning your rig into an impression of a wind tunnel. It’s got the build quality to back those numbers up too. Everything about it screams “no expense spared”. In and of itself that’s enough to win it our OC3D Performance Award.

Power Connector

We also need to talk about the big thing ASUS bring to the party here. 12VHPWR connectors have had a lot talked about them. Connectors melting to the GPU. Cables disintegrating from the heat. Unfortunately they have always been problems that are tough to diagnose. Now, with the green pin/red pin display on the software it’s clear if there is an issue. We cannot overstate how game changing this is. There are often times when ASUS lead the market and everyone follows, and this is an innovation we demand everyone follows. With this much money on the line there is no risks to be taken. Do you want to ruin your near 3 grand purchase? Neither do we.

All it needs is a flag to tell you it’s detected an issue. Whether it is as simple as a audible alarm, an on-screen notification overlay, or just turning the RGB lighting red, some way of noting the problem mid-game would make this perfect.

For finally, cleverly, taking away all of our worries regarding the insane power that can be drawn through our 12VHPWR cables, and telling us when we need a new one, the GPU Tweak III software wins our OC3D Innovation Award.

ASUS GPU Tweak III